Glenn Mason celebrates former students who are working and urges educators to “take equal pride in our young men and young women who either defer college, or simply aren’t college-bound.”
. . . on a bus ride home from LaGuardia Airport I ran into a former student who was wearing an airline uniform working as a ticket agent for one of the major airlines. His buddy, another former student, helped him get the job. But his friend left two weeks ago for Air Force boot camp.
For many of my students the military is a wonderful option. Far too many of our kids come from complicated homes. The military provides them with a path to a better life and many of my former students still need an ounce or two of discipline in their lives.
. . . A service member can learn a trade such as airplane mechanics, dental hygiene, culinary arts, or stenography that can be transitioned into civilian life.
Mason recalls Kermit, who struggled to pass the Regents and earn a diploma.
His overjoyed guidance counselor and teachers helped him enroll in a trade program after high school. A couple of years later our school received a new set of computers. A technician from a Department of Education contractor was sent to install them for us. Guess who came to set up our new equipment? Kermit! . . . We couldn’t have been more proud.
Teachers celebrated when they found out Benny, a former student, had broken his leg. He’d disappeared from the construction site next to the school; they’d feared he’d been laid off, fired or had quit. Benny still had a job! “A week or so later he was back at work – walking cast and all,” writes Mason. He has the chance to “move up from his entry-level job to a more skilled labor position such as a carpenter’s assistant. The young man he replaced on the job site – another former student – did exactly just that.”